Created (Talented Saga) (34 page)

One short flight of stairs, and then a four by four landing, followed by another ten metal steps, and we were at the door to the penthouse level of The Hamilton.
I found that I was holding my breath as the door eased open just a crack. A thin beam of soft yellow light shot into the blackened stairwell from the emergency bulbs in the hallway. I closed my eyes and concentrated on counting the minds on the penthouse level. Four. I counted just four. That meant only three guards stood between us and Mac. There were more on the lower levels, but the symphony of gunfire and grunts told me they were occupied.

Coward, I thought as Erik slipped into the hallway with me a beat behind him.
Mac was a coward. His operatives, his people, were fighting and dying because he was too weak to accept punishment for his crimes.

“Two at the door.
One must be inside with him,”
Erik sent.

“Yeah, I see them.”

Two guards stood sentinel on either side of the door to Mac’s suite. One, the male, was exactly what I’d expected. He was close to two feet taller than me, just shy of seven foot, and probably weighed as much as a small hovercar. Hard muscle rippled under his adapti-suit as he rolled his shoulders and then jogged in place.

It was the woman – a girl really – who stopped me in my tracks.
She was tall and thin with hair the color of milky coffee and eyes that matched. Kenly Baker. My protégé. What the hell was she doing here?

“Tal?
What’s wrong?”
Erik tugged on my hand.

“I know her,”
I said, dumbstruck.
“That’s Kenly. The girl I was training for her Hunters’ tryout. She … she shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right.”

Kenly glanced in our direction and squinted her eyes like she trying to see something a great distance away.
I stopped breathing. Could she see us?

“Do you see something down there?” she asked her partner.

Mr. Muscles barely looked before answering, “Nah.”

I exhaled slowly.

Kenly wasn’t convinced, but she let it go.

“What do you want to do?”
Erik asked.

Want did I want to do?
I wanted Kenly to not be here. Her presence complicated matters too much. Killing the nameless operatives at Tramblewood, even the ones in Gatlinburg, had been hard enough. She was my friend. No way was I going to harm her. Unfortunately, she was also in my way. I’d have to go through her to get to Mac.

“Tals?”

“I’m thinking,”
I shot back.

“Not to be an ass, Tal, but could you think faster?
The natives sound a little restless downstairs.”

I bit my tongue to keep from audibly groaning.
“Fine. You take the big one. Let me deal with her.”

“I was going to suggest that anyway.”

“How chivalrous of you.”
Sarcasm lost something when used mentally.
“Erik? No matter what, don’t kill her.”

“No.
No deal. If she gets the upper hand with you, I’m taking her out.”

“Erik,”
I begged.

Erik started forward without another word, leaving me no choice except to follow unless I wanted to suddenly appear in the middle of the hallway.

Fine, I thought, I just need to incapacitate her before Erik finishes with the oaf.

We crept so close to the duo that I felt the big guy’s hot breath on my face.
Onions, he’d eaten onions recently. I stopped breathing through my nose.

“Count of three?”
Erik asked.

“One,”
I said.

“Two,”
Erik added.

And on three we broke apart.
My forearm was corporeal when it slammed into Kenly’s throat. Her eyes bugged and she looked like she was going to be sick all over me. I didn’t hesitate before using the heel of my other hand to knock her head into the wall behind her. This should’ve put her down for the count. Her eyes crossed and she wobbled like a newborn animal unused to her legs, but she remained conscious.

“Talia?” she asked, sounding confused.

I clapped a hand over her mouth and was about to slam her against the wall for a second time, when I felt a sharp jab between two of my ribs. I glanced down. Kenly had the tip of a knife jammed directly below my heart.

“Kenly,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper, “You don’t want to do this.”

Indecision flickered across her gaze, and the knife went in a little farther. The fabric of my suit was bearing the brunt of the force, and I was pretty confident the blade wasn’t going to actually penetrate.

Before I could plead with her further, Erik’s hand shot between us, knocking Kenly’s hand and the knife upwards.
The weapon flew across the hallway, skidded across the polished floor, and smacked into the wall with a thud. Erik had Kenly by the throat and was squeezing the breath from her.

“Erik, please.
I don’t think she knows what’s going on.”

“Get the Director, Tals.
He’ll have heard the commotion.”

Kenly was clawing at Erik’s fingers to no avail.
I noticed that while he had her pinned to the wall, he wasn’t actually strangling her.

“I’ll be right behind you,”
Erik added.

He glanced down at me with murderous rage that made his irises glow.
It scared me. He scared me. Even more terrifying was that I saw the same rage reflected in Kenly’s eyes now. When she’d looked at me, she seemed confused, maybe a little lost. Now … now she looked like something not quite human.

“Go,” Erik growled to me.

I didn’t hesitate any longer. Mac was so close I could practically smell the expensive cologne he sometimes wore. And Erik didn’t want me to see what he was about to do. He was trying to spare me the pain of watching Kenly die. His patience was wearing thin, though. Erik wanted Mac as much as I did.

He stood alone in front of a glass wall, arms crossed over his chest, and watched as the capital burned.
Shoulders rounded, head hung, Mac kept his back to me as I slowly closed, and locked, the door to the suite behind me. I saw his reflection in the glass, superimposed over the fingers of orange flames that reached higher and higher until they gripped the top of the building directly across from The Hamilton and tore it to the ground. There was no sound to accompany the chaos; it was like watching a muted wallscreen.

“Natalia.”
Mac’s tone was flat, lacking even the tiniest hint of inflection when he said my name.

“It’s over, Mac,” I told him, taking three more steps into the opulent suite.

Mac laughed humorlessly. “No, no, Natalia. ‘It’ is far from over.” He turned, slow and deliberate, to pierce me with cold eyes the same silver as the blade Kenly had nearly shoved into my chest.

“You’re trapped, Mac.
You can’t escape,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure that was technically true. I had no idea who was winning the fight outside The Hamilton’s walls, or within them for that matter. I wasn’t even sure that anyone could be called a ‘winner’ in the wake of so much destruction.

My bluff fell on deaf ears.
Mac kept talking as if I hadn’t spoken.

“My vision has been realized.
Others understand and agree that the talented are superior to the rest of the population. We are more than human, Natalia. We are a class unto ourselves. And this new breed of Talents, well, they are superior still to you and I. They can and will take over the world.”

“You’re crazier than they are,” I told him.

“You must have seen that for yourself,” Mac continued, ignoring me once again. “If nothing else, you have seen what your own boyfriend is now capable of.”

Mac raised a questioning eyebrow, finally seemingly to truly acknowledge my presence.
I said nothing. I had seen what Erik could do. Before Mac’s interference, Erik had been lethal. But he’d been controlled, too. Now that control was slipping. My own control was only hanging on by a frayed thread. In the past, I’d been quick to defend, but rarely was I the aggressor. Since being injected with the creation drug, I was more willing to let my more basic instincts guide my actions, instead of my conscience.

“Why?” I asked Mac.

“Why?” he parroted. “Our race was becoming extinct, Natalia. Each generation has far fewer Talents than the one before it. Those that are blessed with gifts, are weak. Half the children at the School are unable to move a pebble with their minds, see further into the future than tomorrow, or view a person not related to them. The created?” Mac’s eyes lit up with unabashed glee. “The Created can move mountains. They can bend armies to their wills. They do not just see the future; they are the future.”

My blood ran cold.
Mac had just confirmed my worst fears. A dull ache started behind my eyeballs, causing the right one to twitch. My hands, fisted at my sides, started to shake. Mac grinned.

“Don’t you want to be a part of that future, Natalia?” he asked.
“The created do have a flaw. I am sure you have heard. The power makes them unstable, unpredictable. Given the right environment and guidance, they are easily controlled. The weaker their minds become, the more nurturing they need. You, though, were born with more talent than can be engineered in a lab. You have lived with the power your entire life. You could teach them how to control it, help them cultivate their abilities, lead them into tomorrow.”

The pressure inside my head was building.
It felt like air was being pumped into both of ears, and I had no way to let it out. There were voices, too. They seemed to be struggling to be heard over one another. And then, without warning, my head emptied. I sagged and tried to focus on the reason I’d come to the hotel room in the first place, only I couldn’t remember why that was.

A solitary thought sprang up from the blank landscape inside of my brain, like the first flower to bloom after a long winter.
I thought, maybe Mac was right. Maybe I could help the created. Maybe, like me, they could learn to control their talents. Who better to teach them? Not only was I naturally more talented than most, but I’d been blessed with an extra gift more recently. Sure, it had been difficult at first, but now, now I was great at morphing. The mood swings were easier to cope with now, too.

Mac had uncrossed his arms and he was holding a hand out in my direction.
The smile on his lips was inviting, concerned, and, most importantly, loving. I smiled back.

“This is what Francis wanted for you,” Mac told me.

I froze mid-step.

“He saw your potential.
Just like I saw Donavon’s. It was such a shame that my son wasn’t born talented, like you. That is why I had to help him along. He was so even-tempered, so wonderful at maintaining control. The two of you were so perfect together, Natalia. If not for the tragedy in Kentucky, he could have helped you lead the created.”

The voices were back, too many to count.
They invaded my mind simultaneously, each demanding something different from me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. My own thoughts were like stars, too small and too distant to touch. I shook my head and tried to regroup. Concentrate, I ordered myself. Inhaling deeply, I picked the brightest star and willed it closer until it formed an image in my mind.

“You killed him,” I said.
“He was your flesh and blood, your son, and you killed him.” Each accusation came out uglier than the one before it, and suddenly I remembered why I was here.

“No, Natalia, it was an accident,” Mac said calmly.
“Don’t you remember?”

The pressure started to build again, but this time I was ready for it.
I slammed my mental walls into place as realization dawned on me.

“Where is he Mac?
Where’s your new pet Manipulator?” That was the fourth mind Erik and I had felt. The stupid Manipulator from Gatlinburg.

Mac applauded me.
“Bravo, Natalia. Except, it isn’t a ‘he’.”

Three things happened simultaneously:
the door to the suite blew off of its hinges, the glass behind Mac shattered into millions of tiny icicles, and Gretchen stepped out from the shadows.

“Both of them.
Secure both of them,” Erik barked from behind me, as Coalition soldiers and UNITED guards poured into the suite.

“Danbury McDonough, you are under arrest,” a voice boomed through the loudspeaker of the hoverplane now shining its spotlight through the nonexistent window.
“Down on your knees, or we will shoot.”

“Gretchen?
No,” I whispered, shaking my head. Not the woman who’d been so nice to me, so much like a real mother.

I watched as UNITED guards surrounded her.
Thick metal cuffs were clamped around her wrists.

“Tranquilize her,” Erik ordered.
“She’s too dangerous.”

“No,” I repeated dumbly.

I felt numb. This couldn’t really be happening. I’d come to terms with Mac being corrupt a long time ago. But Gretchen? I pinched the delicate skin on the side of my neck, hoping that would jolt me out of this parallel reality and back to the one where at least part of the last eight years hadn’t been a lie.